Kansai Travels

11/13 - Final hours in Osaka

2010-08-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

We would be heading home today, but we got some last minute shopping in. Usually when we've travelled to Asia, we've typically pushed the limits of the monetary value of the products bought overseas; however on this trip, we spent so much of our time sightseeing that we didn't even come close to hitting the one person limit.

This morning we headed down to a bookstore known as Junkudo [淳久堂]. We had been in there a few days ago and there was a book that H was interested in, but didn't get it a few days ago. However, he really wanted to get his hands on it now. So we went down to the bookstore at opening time.

However, before actually getting to the store, H needed the all important breakfast to tie him over. We stopped into the Lotteria along Shinsaibashi-suji [新齋橋筋]. Lotteria is a Japanese fast food place. I had a pizza sandwich, which really all that interesting. N, however, had an English muffin with a half-boiled egg. Oh my gosh. The egg yolk was so yummy. It was much better than that dinky pizza sandwich that H had.

Junkado was all the way, way south. The store is well within the boundaries of Namba [なんば] and outside of Shinsaibashi [新齋橋]. There seemed to be a lot of tourists off the beaten path early this morning. H quickly bought his book, a JR train catalog book. What an otaku. N bought some of her Japanese manga by Takagi Naoko [高木直子]. We were pretty much in and out of there.

As we headed back north to Dotonbori [道頓堀] for more gifts and souvenirs, we also noticed that all the pachinko parlours had huge lineups. It was the middle of the day and people were lining up to gamble? It was a little unreal. Pachinko [パチンコ], for those who don't know, is a form of "gambling" in Japan that involves loud, noisy, and bright machines with silver balls that one shoots up to the top and you hope that it drops in the prize pockets. Your job as the gambler is to control the speed of these balls in such a way that you win prizes. Apparently, it's all very addictive.

After picking up some more souvenirs at the Glico store in Dotonbori, we headed back up to the Tokyu Hands department store. We also ended up at the door just before it opened. It's very interesting to watch a Japanese store open shop for the day. An employee stands at each door and they time the opening of the doors and do a very polite greeting complete with bowing to everyone who passes through. We grabbed a few things in the store and then headed back to the guesthouse.

We got all our stuff together, said our goodbyes to the Taiwanese guesthouse owner. The owner kept forgetting that we came from Canada. She thought we were flying "home" to Taiwan or Hong Kong. We walked back to the Honmachi [本町] subway station. Here came all the stairs again. We just had the most rotten luck trying to find escalators and elevators at key points to get to the train platform. We took the Midosuji [御堂筋] Line, or Red Line all the way up to Senri-chuo [千里中央] up in the northern suburbs of Osaka. There were even more stairs as we transferred from the subway to the Osaka monorail. Oh was H's back hurting now.

The ride from Senri-chuo to the airport was pretty short. It's only 5 stations long. It was our last chance for some shots of the city. The central area of Osaka was far away and was visible on the horizon. In the near field, there were things like a temple and canal that caught the camera's eye.

We got off the monorail at Itami [伊丹] airport. There are two main buildings and it seems to be that one building is for Japan Airlines (JAL) flights and the other is for All Nippon Airways (ANA) flights. At least that's what it looked like to the passing observer. There was a lot of confusion as to which counter we were supposed to check in at. The signs weren't entirely clear at one end of the building. We discovered we had lined up for the wrong counter and were redirected further down the grand hall. When we finally got to the other end, there was a more obvious sign telling us where international passengers travelling via Tokyo should check in.

After all that confusion and going through security, we still had a little time and we were quite hungry. So we had to grab some supper. We came across a little curry place inside the airport on the way to the gate. It was actually really good food. We found that surprising for airport food. We both had curry and omurice (rice wrapped in an egg omelette). It really hit the spot for a pre-flight meal.

A note about Itami airport. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary to take a photo with, then you may want to pose with this gigantic onigiri (rice ball) outside the Airdeli between the two terminal buildings.

The flight from Itami to Narita outside of Tokyo was very quick. Just a one hour up and down flight. When we arrived in Narita, we realized that our flight had been delayed at least 30 minutes. That meant we had a little more time than expected. So we wandered the Narita airport and its stores. There were lots of high end retail stores that wouldn't fit our budget. However, there was one large "superstore" that sold everything from souvenirs to gadgets and from kimonos to snacks. It seemed like everyone in the airport was in there.

Next to the store, we also took advantage of the Yahoo! Cafe Japan. We didn't have easy Internet access for the past few days, so we caught up on all our email and Facebook feeds. It had been a while since we had heard so much English. People from all over the place were in this place taking advantage of Internet access.

Pretty soon, we were at the gate for our flight back home to YVR. Lots of Canadians around now. There was one group who was talking about their exploits. Some of them were obviously big anime fans by the way they dressed. Visiting Japan for them must have been like visiting their Mecca. Across from our gate was another gate with a flight bound for Chicago. H mused about hopping onto that flight since he would be flying there the day after next. Talk about an upcoming case of major jet lag.

It's always sad to end a trip, but it's always nice to go home. So it was with a tinge of sadness that we said goodbye to Japan. Obviously, you can tell that we will be back again. Just wait until we buy our next travel book for our next destination. Until next time, thank you for "travelling" with us to Japan and Kansai.

11/12 - Yuraku Onsen - 『湯楽温泉』

2010-08-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

As evening fell over Osaka, we eagerly anticipated a night of resting our feet and bodies at a local onsen. N's friend in Hong Kong had visited a little known neighbourhood onsen in Osaka. The problem was, we weren't entirely sure where this place was. After a quick Internet search and trying to figure out how to type out the kanji for this place, N found out where it was. We found out that the place was called Yuraku Onsen [湯楽温泉] and that it was in the southwest of Osaka.

We entered Honmachi [本町] Station on the east end of the station. The station is actually made up of 3 different subway stations along 3 different lines. We needed the Yotsubashi [四つ橋] Line, or the Blue Line. That part of the station, unfortunately, was on the west end of the station. So we had to walk all the way to that part of the station before actually being able to hop on a train. We worked hard for our relaxation.

After hopping on the Yotsubashi Line, it was a one-seat ride south to Kitakagaya [北加賀屋] station in the southwest section of Osaka. The station is the second last station on the line, so it was quite a ways out. Once we stepped out, you could tell that things felt different in this section of town. Things were a little more open and the buildings shorter. We had to walk about 10 to 15 minutes to reach the onsen. Fortunately, just outside of exit 4 was a large map showing the way.

Unfortunately, that was the only picture we took that evening. We totally forgot to take pictures of the open areas outside of the baths. One thing you notice about the place when you arrive is that it has, shock, a parking lot. You would never think to find a large parking lot in Japan, but this is more of the suburbs of Osaka. However, it was pay parking. No free lunch here.

Upon entry, we had no idea how to pay. We went right up to the man and woman at the desk. We just wanted to pay to go in, but they kept pointing to something behind us. Finally, the lady came out and politely showed us the vending machine where we were to buy tickets for our admission and for extras such as towels. Vending machines - they really are everywhere in Japan.

As with all sentos and onsens, the bath is divided into two sections. Yuraku onsen's two sections are divided into the "rock bath" and the "wood bath" (those rough translations based on Kanji). For this evening, the rock bath was reserved for women and the wood bath was reserved for men. The men and women would switch bath sides the next evening. However, for us, this was the only evening we would be here.

So after dutifully paying the vending machine for our entry and towels, we entered our respective sides. We stripped down and entered the baths to enjoy a evening of relaxation.

In the wood bath section, there was also what looked to be a barber shop included in the changing room. It looked like men could come here to get the whole bathing and grooming thing done in one shot. There must have been a button on the vending machine outside to buy a ticket for this service.

Continuing into the baths, the areas were sub-divided further into several smaller baths. On the inside portion, there were the typical cleaning stations complete with faux wooden buckets, faux wooden stools, shampoo, and conditioner. After a thorough cleaning, we were free to enter whichever bath we so chose.

I guess some people would feel terribly uncomfortable in the presence of other naked persons of the same sex. It only ever happens in changing rooms at swimming pools in North America. In Japan, though, it's quite normal for naked men to commune with each other in the baths. The same for naked women.

What was a little uncomfortable was there were three young primary school girls running around on the men's side. They must have been with their father and grandfather from the looks of it. The girls would keep coming back to one young man and another older man from time to time. It's very interesting to see how nudity plays out in Japanese culture.

Each side had a special bath, on the rock bath side, there was the Dead Sea bath. It's filled with salt water and you can literally float effortlessly on the salt water. On the wood bath side, there was the rubber duck bath. The bath was in a little dome shaped room with rubber ducks filling a very shallow pool of water. I suspect that the girls accompanied their father especially for this bath. However, the bath didn't seem to be popular with the men that night.

What was really fun was trying all the different baths. You know it could get extremely boring sitting in the same old hot bath for 10 minutes. So change things up. Douse yourself with cold water and do it all over again in a different bath. There were even a couple of large flat screen TVs to keep you occupied if you were really bored of plain, old relaxation. There was a Japanese game show on the tele that night.

After about a good hour or so I've going from bath to bath. Our feet had a well deserved treatment. Poor little feet. H and N met up outside in the common area and sat on the tatami floor. Our shoes were all checked in at the front door. N was reading some Japanese fashion mags while waiting and H grabbed a drink from yet another vending machine. On our way out, a gentleman had set up a mini fruit stand. Fruit sounded great after all this eating out, so we bought some oranges and took it back to the guesthouse to munch on.

After a sento in Kyoto, the grand onsen ryokan in Arima, and Yuraku Onsen in suburban Osaka, we got a pretty broad experience of different bathhouses in Japan. This was the perfect way to spend our last evening in Japan.

11/12 - The Runaround along Shinsaibashi

2010-07-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

We woke up late this last full day in Osaka. Our feet needed the extra rest. Can you think of pulsing feet? That's close to the feeling we had even with a night's rest. The morning shower was welcome, even though it was extra cramped and it was hard to move around in. There were no more passes to use today, so we would be on our feet again all day again.

We walked down the Senbai [船場] section of Shinsaibashi [心齋橋], south towards the main Shinsaibashi-suji [心齋橋筋] stretch with the major shops. The Senbai section felt more like the local neighbourhood shopping arcade. We walked 3 blocks south and realized that we weren't all that far away from the Hearton Hotel in Shinsaibashi. We could have literally rolled our luggage with relative ease from the hotel to the guesthouse the day before. That would have saved hundreds of dollars in post-Japan physio on H's back.

H's first order of the day was to find breakfast. N just wanted to shop until lunchtime. It wasn't early enough to qualify this meal as breakfast, but it was also obviously not late enough in the day to have all the shops open. H was really getting "hangry" so N picked a McDonald's in Shinsaibashi-suji. Unfortunately, we just missed the breakfast menu by 5 minutes. H ordered a Ebi Filet burger. Think Filet-o-Shrimp. H took a coffee with his meal, but he felt the Canadian coffee tasted better.

After the quick meal, we walked out to the 24 hour Tsutaya bookstore just tucked behind all the famous, currently unlit, neon signs right on the other side of the Dontobori Bridge. Just as in North America, this bookstore is complete with Starbucks. Eat your heart out Chapters.

This is when H had a sudden No. 2 calling, if you know what I mean. Don't you just hate it when you travel and you desperately need a toilet. Grr. N remained in the bookstore while H searched out an appropriate WC. H remembered that there was a public toilet just by the Dotonbori [道噸堀] Bridge. So he stepped out over there and was about to go in when he spotted a disgusting mess. He didn't even have to get that close to the toilet to see it. There was no way he was going in. So he ran back to the McDonald's to see use their toilet. The one toilet there was occupied. Just wait a few minutes and it should become free, right? The guy was in their for 10 minutes. He must have reading the newspaper or the most recent copy of a "cream" mag. 10 friggin' minutes. H was starting to hop up and down at this point. He ran back to Tsutaya and realized that there was directory near the escalators that revealed a men's WC on the 3/F. Relief!! How do you say that in Japanese?!

from the room of Danny Choo

After this runaround Shinsaibashi-suji, H rejoined N in the Tsutaya bookstore. H came across a copy of Otacool. He follows a blog by Danny Choo, who was the brainchild behind this book on otaku and their otaku rooms from around the world. Being in Japan, buying a Japanese book is over 50% cheaper than buying it back in Vancouver. So H instantly lapped up the book.

We walked back up north to Nagahori-dori to the Tokyu Hands department store. It's a very popular department store in Japan. It has also a very large DIY and crafts section in the store that attracted N's interest. We bought some items that would be very hard-to-find in Canada. We figured that if you even found the same item in Canada, it would be ~~50%~~ 100% more expensive back home.

After grabbing a few more souvenirs at various shops, it was time to go get some grub again. There was sushi place that we had passed. You can't miss the place because it has a giant dragon wrapped around a large red sphere hanging up as their logo. We decided to partake in what they had to offer. This place was one of those classic conveyor belt sushi places. It was mid-afternoon and well after lunch, so we got a seat right away.

They had tea on tap in this place too. Just get your cup and press it against the button. Voila! Hot tea pours right out on demand. You've gotta love that cause you can never have enough tea in a restaurant. No need to ask the server for a refill. Awesome.

Used to think that conveyor belt sushi would only have sushi, but this place had their desserts, napkins and other stuff on the belt. So if you wanted to take dessert early, there would be no issue. Or if you needed extra napkins, just pick it off the belt. There's even dessert spoons in a little cup that come around from time to time. Just hope the people before don't pinch it before it gets to you. Otherwise, you'd have to wait until the next round of goodies.

There was some more traditional sushi, but there were also some strange ones. The one is black pepper meat was not my favourite. Some things are best not served with rice and seaweed. In the end, we did pretty well and demolished at least 20 tiny dishes of sushi and dessert. The proof was in our stack of plates at the end. Unlike most conveyor belt sushi places, this place did not charge by the plate. It was all you can eat for under ¥1,000. That was a deal in a major tourist and shopping district. I wonder if that was the happy hour price?

Our feet were already pretty pooped from days and days of walking. So we headed back to the guesthouse to rest and pack up our belongings. Back there, we borrowed the guesthouse owner's one computer to look for a large onsen in Osaka that was recommended by one of N's Hong Kong friends. Her friend had actually been there and posted her photos of the place on Facebook. So we had to go check it out. N found the name, address, and directions. We had our evening plans laid out for some good old Japanese R & R.

11/11 - Umeda Sky Building and the Floating Garden

2010-07-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

We left Namco City in search of the Umeda Sky Building. We had to snake our way again past the massive department stores in this part of town, including the enormous Hankyu [阪急]department store/train station complex and Yodobashi Camera (huge electronics department store). Then just past Yodobashi Camera, we had to follow the very long underground passageway to Shin Umeda City. Who was the brilliant person who decided to put this huge complex on the other side of the railway tracks?

After walking for what seemed like forever on our already tired feet, we arrived at the foot of the Umeda Sky Building, a pair of towers connected at the top by a huge platform complete with observatory. Again, we were fortunate to have the Osaka Unlimited Pass and gained free admission to the Floating Garden observatory 173m in the air.

The elevator didn't take us up all the way. Part of the fun is to take the escalator that takes you up in the between the two towers. This may be the world's highest suspended escalator. Certainly, it seems like the scariest to any one with vertigo.

Not only was there the outdoor observatory, but there were other things on display up top. There was one area where there were student projects on sustainable and healthy living. There were some interesting, if not truly practical, concepts.

There was also a room with an interactive projected display in the middle of the room. When you sat on the benches on the side, your motion on the benches could change the display on the floor in the middle of the room.

Outside on the actual observatory platform, it was quite blustery. However, the nighttime views of Osaka were beautiful. I don't think our pictures can really capture the entire atmosphere. In addition to the views, the whole platform was bathed in black light that lit up little parts of the floor in different shades of green and purple.

On one side of the platform was a special lovers' seat. It was a simple red bench in the middle of an area with a lit up floor. The light tiles would constantly change colours and form different patterns, like a heart. All around the area were lovers locks hanging along the railings. It seems to be a popular thing in Asia to buy a lock as a couple and lock it somewhere special. H has also seen the same phenomenon in China at many tourist attractions. However, the area was tightly guarded and was locked out to the general public. It seems like you would need to reserve the bench and pay a fee for the right to snuggle at 173m in the air.

And, of course, there's the view. Regular price is ¥700, which is almost half the price of Vancouver's Lookout at Harbour Centre's $15 admission. So the view is well worth the regular price of admission. You could see in all directions. The city views to the south and east were beautiful. Views to the west were of Osaka Bay, and to the north was the river and the lower lying northern burbs.

We came down off our 173m high back to the ground and back underneath the railway tracks to the main part of Umeda [梅田]. It was still early and H needed additional clothing because we had extended our stay, so we went to Uniqlo and bought some stuff. Then on the way back to the subway station, we saw a Kinokuniya bookstore[紀伊國屋書店]. This is quite possibly Japan's largest bookstore company with stores overseas as well. N couldn't resist picking up a few books here - 3 manga and 1 budget tracking book.

By this time our feet were truly, truly done for. We trudged our way back to the guesthouse from the subway. Our feet kill!!!

11/11 - Gyoza Museum

2010-07-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

Back on the subway to Umeda [梅田]. We went topside and it was now completely dark. We snaked our way past a department store or two to find our way to the Namco City building. If you're not familiar with Namco, they are a big video game producer. Their most famous title would be Pac-Man.

Our destination, the Gyoza Museum, was atop several stories of a video game arcade. Again, these food museums tend not to be actual museums, but really a food court that is dedicated to a specific dish or cuisine. In this case, it is the common, but oh so varied gyoza.

Gyoza [餃子]is the Japanese name for what is essentially Chinese dumpling (known as jiaozi in Chinese). There is a lot of variety in the way these dumplings are stuffed and cooked. So we arrived at the Gyoza Museum with high expectations. The very first stall was right at the top of the escalator. We were greeted instantly by the worker there.

After a few exchanges between N and this worker, she asked us if we were Chinese. It turns out that she is a Chinese international student studying Japanese in Osaka. She said she was from Liaoning province in the Northeast of China. She was very excited to meet other Chinese in Osaka. So obviously, we had to order something from her.

The Chinese student gave us our number for our order and we found a table in the seating area. N suggested we split duties and find some more gyoza. So we both went to a couple of stalls and ordered a gyoza dish from each one. Here's the very short skinny on each dish.

Ironplate Pan fried gyoza from the Chinese girl's gyoza stall. H thinks it was pork, but we don't remember now.

Here's fried gyoza covered in loads of green onions (aka. negi gyoza). Plus, that was drenched in soya sauce.

Fried mayonnaise gyoza. We're assuming that it was pork inside too.

A very oily pan fried gyoza. This was too oily from what we remember.

What special gyoza is this? N says it was a cheese gyoza garnished with broccoli on the side.

[All photos, especially of food, are courtesy of N ... naturally]

Overall the Gyoza Museum was worth the visit. There was way more available than just these 5 dishes. Now that our tummies were full, it was time for one last destination for the evening. Our feet were tired, but we were pressing on.

11/11 - Tsutenkaku Tower & Shinseikai

2010-07-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

We were out to squeeze the most out of our Osaka Unlimited Pass on this, the last day of its use. We took the subway down to the Shinseikai area of Osaka. We got out at Ebisucho [恵美須] station. Shinseikai [新世界]literally means "new world" and was the buzz of Japanese modernization in the early 20th Century. Nowadays, it's more of a older neighbourhood with a sketchy reputation. However, there was one attraction that brought us this way - the Tsutenkaku [通天閣]Tower.

Now, I probably wouldn't have come to this tower if it weren't for the free admission. And after having been up and down the tower, I probably wouldn't return again. It was likely a great attraction back in the early 1900's when it was built, but the tower is not all that tall and gives a modest aerial view of the surrounding environs.

On the way up in the dark, dark elevator, you are greeted by elevator attendant and the starry night sky on the ceiling of the elevator. Etched within the full moon in the starry sky is a strange image. As we would later discover, this is Billiken, the God of Happiness.

In one view, we can make out Spa World, a giant spa and hotel facility that claims to feature spas and onsens from around the world. On the website, Spa World looks promising and fun. However, the admission is quite pricy and we had decided not to bother going. Besides, it wasn't the most unique spa in the world. Our Taiwanese guesthouse lady mentioned to us that Spa World had become somewhat sketchy. Sex workers knew that many foreigners would visit Spa World and she said that these workers could be found frequenting Spa World. I don't know how true that rumour is, but the price alone kept me away.

On the other side of the tower, you could see the nearby Tennoji Zoo. That was also free with our Unlimited Pass, but we weren't interested in seeing a zoo here in Japan. The aquariums are much nicer :) In another viewpoint, you could just see endless towers and buildings layout across southern Osaka. I can see where Osaka's reputation of being a gray and bland concrete jungle comes from.

One of the big draws of Tsutenkaku Tower is the wooden idol of Billiken [ビリケン], the God of Happiness. Many visitors apparently rub the soles of his feet for good luck. Both soles were well worn and Billiken was in desperate and obvious need of a podiatrist, especially his right foot. H, for one, refrained from touching the soles of idol. He's just not into that kind of stuff. Although he did go through that hole back at Todai-ji in Nara... oh and the caution tape is not there most of the time as far as I can tell. There was a youth event going on in the tower that decorated the place in police tape.

[side note: apparently Billiken has American origins that I discovered through a Wikipedia search]

The other thing we came across in the tower was a vending machine with a strawberry yogurt drink that N remembers having many years ago. She couldn't resist popping a few hundred yen in the machine to sample this drink. H bought one too of another flavour. N really liked hers, but H thought his was really sour and bland.

Nightfall was upon the city and we were eager to get some food. Tonight's dinner mission - The Gyoza Museum in Umeda.

11/11 - Osaka Museum of History

2010-06-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Pressing onward on our day of museums tour, we went back to the Osaka Castle area to the Osaka Museum of History. We had passed by it on the previous day, but it did not fit well on our itinerary. So here we were again. The museum actually shares a common atrium with the local Osaka branch of NHK television. So there were all these TV posters on one side of the atrium, then the more academic posters of the museum on the other.

As is the trend in a few of the attractions we've visited in Japan, the suggested route in the museum takes you straight to the top floor and then you snake your way down through the exhibits. One of the first signs H looked for was a no photography sign. Apparently it was fine to take photos in most of the exhibits unless there were true artifacts involved, which would be sensitive to light.

One of the first things we did in the museum was to, well, sit down. We had been rushing around a lot this day and our feet were pretty tired. But we also had something to watch as we sat down. It was a large screening room with a short video on the history of Osaka and the surrounding region. It was a good summary to familiarize us with the exhibits ahead.

Also stamp mania was well and alive in the museum. Each floor had a collection of rubber ink stamps to go to and collect the stampings onto a sheet of a paper. It must be a great way to get some kids engaged in the museum itself.

The tenth floor on which we started housed the Naniwa Period (ca. 7th Century) exhibit. There was a partial reconstruction of the Naniwa Palace that once stood literally across from the present-day Osaka Castle and kitty corner to the museum. The ruins are actually visible when you look out the window from the escalator atrium. There were life-size models of the entire royal court of the time. You could walk right through and explore this re-creation. A map in the exhibit showed the footprint of the original palace grounds were now mostly covered by modern buildings.

On the ninth floor was an exhibit about the middle ages and early modern history of Osaka. It's sub heading is 'tour the water city'. Even more so then, maps of the Osaka region reveals how many more rivers were prominent in the region's landscape. Some places where there were rivers before have almost literally disappeared. That explains why some place names with the character boat in their name are nowhere close to water in present day Osaka. There were lots of maps that tickled H's fancy and giant walkthrough exhibits to showcase what life in Osaka was like.

On the eighth floor, we were greeted by the Archaeology Exhibit. This floor was more for kids you could get hands on and try their hand at being Indiana Jones without the Nazis trying to kill you. There wasn't much of interest to us, so we went down to the next floor almost immediately.

On the seventh floor, was the early modern and contemporary exhibit. There is an entire scene recreated from Osaka before WWII when life was buzzing and the city was starting to modernize. It was a night scene complete with streetside vegetable vendors, giant neon signs, and a local shrine lit up to the nines.

The remaining floors in between were all lecture halls and meant for school field trips to use when they visit. So we bypassed all those and went straight down to the statutory gift shop.

Again, Japan has impressed us with their professional museums complete with giant reconstructions or detailed diorama miniatures. For ¥600 (roughly $7 CAD), museums in Japan have been a good bang for your buck. At a much less impressive local museum like the Museum of Vancouver, you'd be paying $12. However, if you decide to use the Osaka Unlimited Pass on the same day as your visit to the Osaka Museum of History, then admission is free. What a bargain!

11/11 - Tenjimbashisuji

2010-06-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

Tenjimbashi-suji [天神橋筋], also known as Tenjinbashi-suji is a mouthful of a name. Also, it's not something you would find in most travel books, except Asian ones perhaps. Tenjimbashi-suji is not your popular tourist attraction. It's a very much typical covered shopping arcade in the Kita ward of Osaka. The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living is situated right in the middle of the shopping arcade and above the subway station that serves the area.

One of the draws for N about Tenjimbashi was the opportunity to do the Tenjimbashi 2.6km walk. They say that it's the longest covered shopping arcade in all of the Japan. So we went north from the museum and subway station. N's guide said there was a small pharmacy north of the subway station where we could pick up a piece of paper to prove that we were starting the walk. H really thought we were walking in the wrong direction. The pedestrian traffic was really thin in this area and there was no obvious sign pointing us to the start of this infamous walk.

With the help of N's trusty Chinese-language travel guide, she found the extremely non-descript pharmacy that the book mentioned. H thought to himself that he would never have found the place on his own. It was a small, small Japanese pharmacy. There wasn't even anyone at the pharmacist's window when we stepped in. We had call out "sumimasen" to get the pharmacist to step out from the back. He apologized Japanese-ly and N asked him about papers for the walk. He promptly gave us a tiny sheet of paper for the walk.

Our goal then was to walk south 2.6km to find the other non-descript store. There, we would hand over our tiny sheet of paper in exchange for a certificate proving we had walked the entire 2.6 km. It's not exactly the same trial as walking the Great Wall, but we'll take it.

We made our back through the busier sections of Tenjimbashi-suji. The other thing the shopping arcade is well-known for is the little food stands and restaurants along the way. Speaking of restaurants, we were pretty hungry by this time. Our McDonald's breakfast had long been digested and we were looking for sustenance again. No better place than Tenjimbashi then.

We went into a restaurant called Jiyuken [自由軒]. Jiyuken is a restaurant chain whose specialty is their Japanese Curry Rice with a fresh uncooked egg on top. Japanese curry is not hot by Indian nor Southeast Asian standards and seems more on the savoury side, but this one left us with a strange feeling. Whatever the flavour it was meant to be, it seemed to be too strong for both of us. No regrets in trying, though.

Even though the food wasn't particularly to our liking, the staff were quite friendly and interested in where we were from. We had to go through the whole we are from Canada, but are Chinese in heritage spiel. Especially for H, since he is born in Canada, that can be an interesting point in conversation. N was very excited that she could carry out much of this conversation in Japanese. Kudos to N. H helped at one point in figuring out a fave Canadian artist for one of the staff. He liked Sarah McLachlan.

We continued down the rest of Tenjimbashi-suji. There were a lot of other food options to snack upon. There was the ¥130 kyabetuyaki [キヤベツ焼] stall. Kyabetuyaki appears to be a fried egg and fried noodle combo dish. However, when we arrived at that stall, there was a TV crew occupying the whole food stand. There was no way that we would bust in on a Japanese TV shoot.

Further down was a mini okonomiyaki [お好み焼き] stall that sold their food for ¥120. Whoever said Japan was expensive to travel through? No TV crew around, so it was safe to queue up and buy ourselves one to try. Mmm...quite savoury and tasty.

Next on the foodie crawl was the mini potato croquette stall. This one was in a small industrial style kiosk. Easily missed if it were not for the obvious line up queuing up to partake in croquettes. We really enjoyed this croquette. We're very glad restaurants like Hi-Genki in Burnaby make croquettes locally that we can enjoy at any time.

We neared the end of the 2.6km walk and the level of activity really died down at this end too. Thanks to N, she spotted which store was the end point of the walk. We went in, handed over our papers, then he went to the back and printed out two certificates to prove that we had finished the infamous 2.6km Tenjimbashi-suji walk.

Okay, my feet are killing me now. Where's the subway so I can sit for a while?

[all photos courtesy of N and her camera]

11/11 - Osaka Museum of Housing and Living

2010-06-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

So continued our tour of museums in Osaka on the backs of our Osaka Unlimited Passes and the accompanying coupons. We up and over to the north-central part of the city. Just above Tenjinbashisuji 6-chome [天神橋筋 6 -丁目] subway station, there is a municipal office building. It was the most unassuming building, but it houses a museum on it's top three stories. [By the way, that must be one of the strangest subway station names, I have ever seen - H]

We took the elevator directly up to the top of the museum and gained admission with our coupons. We rounded the corner just beyond the entrance and was instantly greeted with the faux sky canopy above a total re-creation of an Osaka street scene of the early 20th century. On this top floor, we were level with the rooftops of the re-created buildings with the "indoor sun" shining brightly over the township below. It all obviously looks quite staged from this perspective.

Down a set of stairs and we were right down at street level. The museum wasn't all that busy because it's not a large attraction. However, I would say that the whole street scene experience was very well done. There are no vendors or actors in the street, but the stores and homes that line the street are very detailed and full of little nooks and corners to explore on your own.

The main street was relatively wide and open. The indoor sun shone brightly from the floodlights above and filled the street with a natural glow. All the homes and storefronts were illuminated by the "sun". In one storefront, there was a whole shelf of small trinkets or toys. In another, there were the drawers for traditional medicinal ingredients. It reminded me of what traditional Chinese medicine shops are like, except I couldn't figure out what the labels said. Actually, I don't know what half the labels in a Chinese medicine shop say anyway.

All the homes and shops in the middle of the exhibit were fully built with rooms in the back. When you reach the back of the buildings, you reach a small alley in the back. The alley was much narrower and you could even stumble across a little shrine in one of the corners if you took the time to explore. Again, the detail of each room was much appreciated. Careful exploration certainly paid off with pleasant surprises.

While exploring the back alley, the "weather" began to change. The sky darkened and the sound of the wind picked up. Pretty soon, the sound of rain pelting the rooftops was echoing throughout the street scene. Then lightning and thunder rolled on through. The storm went as quickly as it came and the sun started to shine again. Rain drops could be heard dripping from the tiles above to the ground below. Thankfully, the museum didn't go for the full 4D effect with water.

After finding some replica toilets, which were fortunately never used as toilets, night started to fall. The sky turned a royal purple for the sunset, then an almost complete darkness for night. The sounds of crickets and owls now took over the soundscape. Even a tiny moon made it's way across the ceiling above. We made our way back through another building to the main street. All the shops and homes were now lit from within. It was an old-time Osaka night scene.

We exited the exhibit and made our way to the next floor. By now, you should expect there to be lots of dioramas and miniatures in a Japanese museum. This floor was all dioramas and miniatures. The delicate and detailed displays showed scenes to the beginning of Modern Japanese history. The scene of tightly packed buildings with a large boulevard running down the middle was typical of early urban modernization.

There were also scenes of various activities that happened in Osaka. One was a moving miniature display of life in Shinsaibashi [心齋橋] in the early day. Another was another moving miniature of a festival that took place on the river. If you like miniatures, you will love this part of the museum.

The regular price of admission to the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living is ¥600, but we got in for free with our Osaka Unlimited Pass. But even at ¥600, I think this museum would have been well worth the small admission fee. We were very happy that we visited this museum. It would have been very easy to overlook this small attraction.

11/11 - Modern Transportation Museum

2010-06-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

H being the transit geek that he is, the Modern Transportation Museum was high on his list of places to visit. Fortunately for us, we still had another day on our Osaka Unlimited Pass and it included 20% off of admission to the Transport Museum.

From the guesthouse of the Taiwanese lady, we hopped onto the Chuo Line [中央] at Hommachi [本町]Station and rode the subway to Bentencho [弁天町]Station. A very quick ride at ¥230.

Originally, we thought that breakfast was included in our accommodation at the guesthouse, but we found out that it wasn't the lady at the guesthouse explained that it cost extra to have food included. This differed from what N's travel book and the website had suggested. N said that it was probably because she hadn't looked at the website for a few months. We weren't originally expecting to stay at the guesthouse; it was a last-minute addition to our itinerary.

So without breakfast in our tummies, we promptly stepped into a McDonald's right by Bentencho [弁天町] Station. It was still fairly early in the morning and there were a lot of teens in their school unis taking in breakfast before heading to class. McDonald's in Japan has such a dizzying array of choices for their meals. H had a Salad Marinade McMuffin with Cafe au Lait (H loves Japanese McD's cafe au lait). N had a regular Sausage McMuffin with juice in a Tamagotchi cup.

After a quick bite, we were first in line for the museum this rainy rainy day. There was a lot on display at the Modern Transportation Museum. The museum is divided into many rooms that are all to the left of the main hallway. The rooms are more like sections because there are no doorways to go through.

The museum starts oddly enough with a section about the technology of tomorrow. There is a large magnetic levitation prototype on display and some smaller models of the Shinkansen [新幹線], Japan's famous bullet train. Then after visiting the future, you step back into the past to the birth and growth of the railway in Japan. No shortage of dioramas here.

Then you come across an interactive section where you can control some of the models on display. They obviously made the place accessible to preschoolers because there was a section in the middle of the interactive models where little kids could sneak in and pop there heads up in a bubble. We totally lucked out because a preschool was on a field trip to the museum. The kids made for some fun candids.

In another section, they focused on the current "rolling stock" or trains of the Kansai region. They had displays for each major railway company operating in the area. There was a lot to look at, but not everything was in English. I'm sure H would have spent a whole here if he could.

Along the back of the sections, there was a life-size mock-up of a Shinkansen train complete with a drivers' cabin. You could try your hand at operating a train or take your chances as "rail kill" in front of the bullet train.

All the way at the very end of the museum, just past the one section on non-train transportation, there was the giant Model Train Panorama Room. Did I say the Japanese love their dioramas and miniatures. This was a large miniature world of rail just behind a large number of windows. It was impressive. We were lucky we beat the kids into the room; otherwise, we would have had to fight for spots along the glass and with their fingerprints all over the place. This is one of those places that H wishes he had an ultra wide angle lens for his camera.

After wandering around some of the other exhibits and the actual trains parked outside the museum, H had to visit the gift shop. After deliberating on what souvenir to purchase, he finally settled on two small model trains. One was a maroon Hankyu [阪急] train like one we had ridden on our way to Arima Onsen [有馬温泉]. The other was the Narita Express, which we had ridden back in 2006 to get us from the Narita Airport to Shinjuku [新宿]in Tokyo. Soon enough, it was time to get going again. Next station: the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living.

11/10 - Rainy Evening in Osaka

2010-06-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

Once we were done with the Kaiyukan [海遊館]Aquarium, it was simply pouring outside. The rain was very heavy. A few rain savvy high school kids in unis had just been running around outside and just came in to dry off. A few couples wandered into the bookstore complete with umbrella. It did not look promising out there. After exploring every nook and cranny of the souvenir shop, it was still raining. Plus, it was very dark outside now. We needed to get moving and not waste time.

We ran to the Tempozan [天保山]Marketplace by island hopping from dry patch to dry patch before bursting into the shopping centre's doors. There were quite a few tourists milling about in the Marketplace. We wandered around to the few shops that were still open. There was a manga/anime store with toys and collectibles, there was a Crocs store complete with collectible Japanese baseball team buttons for your Crocs.

Then there was also the Ninja Land "tourist trap". The young guy manning the door to the place was doing the best to draw people in. There was a foreign couple with their young son passing by. The ninja dude did his best to get them through his door. He may have had poor broken English, but he was not shy. There was a group of young girls he walked pass and they were obviously laughing at the ninja guy. I admired him for putting himself out there and just doing his best to bring customers into the shop.

By this time, N and H were really in a foul mood because of the weather. Our original plan was to go up the 112.5m (yes, the 0.5m is apparently important) Giant Tempozan Ferris Wheel. It was still dumping giant globules of rain onto the ground outside. In the end, we bit the bullet and decided to take the ride even though it was a torrential downpour. We didn't really want to waste our 10% off coupon with our Osaka Unlimited Pass for the ride because we wouldn't be coming back this way.

Apparently, there were 2 cars that are all-clear cabins with glass floors and all. H did not know about this and just went for one of the regular cars on the Ferris Wheel. This did not help the foul mood already in the air. As the car ascended up the wheel, one could feel the wind blowing and the rain was pelting onto the side of the ferris wheel car. Even though it was rainy, the weather helped to add the dramatic feel of some photos.

Even though it was very dark and cloudy out, the rain did not totally obscure some of the close in night views of the harbour. You could forget about seeing far off Kobe [神戸]and Mt. Rokko [六甲山], but the views of the nearby Osaka Harbour Bridge and the Kaiyukan Aquarium were in plain view. Occasionally, the wind would cooperate and be still enough for H to get some somewhat clear low-light shots.

Since it was so cold and rainy this night, it was not that pleasant to feel some of the wind outside wind its way into the cabin and chill our already chilly toes. At least there were some people enjoying this ride 112.5m in the air on this rainy night. There was the couple in the car behind us. Fortunately, they had our backs to us and offered a nice candid and romantic contrast to the wet, dark night.

The ride was over quicker than we had expected and we still had some time left in the evening. We went back to use facilities in the Marketplace, then decided to head down a few train stops over to the World Trade Centre (WTC) CosmoTower. Why not? Entry to the CosmoTower was free with our Unlimited Pass. We boarded back onto the subway for one stop to Cosmosquare [コスモスクエア], where we had to transfer to the Nanko Port Town Line [ニユートウム]. The Nanko Port Town Line is a smaller train which felt like the size and shape of the old square SkyTrain cars in Vancouver or the RT in Scarborough. It was only 4 cars long just like the old SkyTrains in Vancouver too. We took that for only one stop to the Trade Center-mae [トレードセンター前]station.

It was really hard to figure out how to get to the WTC CosmoTower from the train station. We literally got out of the station and crossed to the other side of the street via a pedestrian overpass. Then we walked for about a block within a large shopping centre/office tower lobby. Then we had to cross back over the same street via another pedestrian overpass to get to the WTC CosmoTower. Don't you think they could have had a more direct path from the station?

After all that roundabout walking we finally made our way to the observation deck at the top of the WTC CosmoTower. It was really quiet up there. This out of the way tower took a lot of work to get to, so I'm not surprised that not more people were here. We took a few shots from atop the tower. We could easily make out the Tempozan Ferris Wheel, which we were on not too long ago.

Wow. We were further away than I thought we were. It may have only been two train stops, but the ferris wheel looked pretty tiny from this vantage point. Then there were all the apartment buildings below the tower. It was obvious this was a newer part of town. From the maps of the harbour area, one could also see that all of these new buildings sat on reclaimed land with uber straight coastlines.

Well, that was enough running around for the day and night. We were really hungry and grabbed a quick bite in a restaurant directly below in the shopping mall in the tower. It was sort of a fast food restaurant that served fried Japanese dishes like tonkatsu, but you could help yourself to an unlimited amount of side dishes and rice. There was a noisy, somewhat drunk trio of men in the restaurant. H wasn't feeling all that agreeable and was easily annoyed by the trio. N thought it was good to see three men just having a good time.

With dinner in our tummies, we headed back to the Taiwanese guest house. It was a dizzying day with lots of vistas from literally land, sea, and air.

11/10 - Kaiyukan Aquarium

2010-05-31T21:49:00.000-07:00

Since our ride on the Aqua Bus ride at noon, we hadn't eaten a bite. And now it was around 2-3pm. So after the Santa Maria, we ran into the Tempozan Marketplace for food. N had a KFC craving while H wandered into the "Old Osaka" replica area of the food court and grabbed a egg wrap type snack. It was a quick and somewhat smaller than desired lunch. H wishes he had gone KFC too because the giant KFC puff pastry looked oh so good and oh so much more filling.

After a very quick lunch, we headed into the Kaiyukan Aquarium [海遊館]. This is advertised as one of the largest aquariums anywhere in the world. The way this aquarium works is that they send you to the top of the building first and then you snake your way down through the collection of different climate displays and giant tanks. There were tons of fish, of course. In the Amazon display, there was a giant arapaima. I could fit inside the belly of that fish, I think.

A little further down there were the piranhas. I didn't realize how small these fish were, but they are really eerie to look at. The whole school of them just float there with their noses pointing to the surface. They lie their waiting for their next prey to fall in the water. One can just imagine the frenzy that would ensue if some meat did fall in the tank. Very unnerving. Luckily we're on the other side of the glass.

In another window was the Antarctic exhibit complete with penguins. On land, these penguins careen their pudgy bodies around the surface, but boy do they move like torpedoes once they get in the water. Case in point below. Penguin on land looks all sedate and wonders who this yahoo is taking a picture of him.

Then his pal a few metres over is in the water jetting around up and down and every which way possible. H got lucky with one shot where he could actually get a clear view of the eyes of a darting underwater penguin.

As we descended, there was the one giant tank that was in the middle of our path. It was the largest of the tanks that went up almost the entire height of the building. Within this tank was a giant ray that hover hither and fro. He also had quite a few fish in tow. Cleaning fish?

There were also a couple of large whale sharks in the giant tank. I believe the whale shark is their main attraction in this tank. It was hard to get a good head on shot of the shark. The best was a shot of the large fish swimming away from the glass.

As we descended beyond the giant tank, we came into a darker area. This was the perfect set up for all the jellyfish on display in the aquarium. I think this aquarium probably has way more jellyfish than the Vancouver Aquarium. The jellyfish are all lit up in their bright colours. Everyone loves to watch these bright creatures dance around in the dark waters. It's definitely worth all the space on the memory card to get a good shot.

As we came out of the depths of the aquarium and into more light, there was a section where you could get up close and personal with a few of the aquarium residents. There was one section with no barriers between you and the penguins. Obviously, it is verboten to touch the penguins. However, that was not the case with the baby rays and baby sharks in small shallow tanks near the penguins. After washing one's hands, you could reach in a feel the bodies of the rays and sharks. The rays were all squishy feeling like Jello; whereas, the sharks' skin was very coarse and rough to the touch.

Then last but not least was a little critter that didn't seem to belong in an aquarium. Actually, I shouldn't say little. The creature I am talking about is the world's largest species of rodent. It's known as a capybara. When I first saw, I was thinking what the heck is that thing? You get close it and you can tell it has the head of rodent, but it has the giant body. Now that I think about it, it really resembles a beaver. So we ended our trip to one of the world's largest aquariums with what looked like a land mammal, but apparently these guys are semi-aquatic. These must be the South American cousin to our Canadian beavers.

11/10 - Santa Maria

2010-05-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

This day was definitely a tourist day. You can blame the Osaka Unlimited Pass that I keep mentioning. It has a sheet of coupons for different attractions, some of which are free with the pass. So why not take advantage of it all.

After the 1-hour Aqua Bus Liner tour, we walked from Osakajo Pier to Osaka Business Park station to get back onto the subway. There may have been a JR Osaka Loop station right by the pier, but we would have had to pay extra for JR today. All the subway rides were unlimited today with the Osaka Unlimited Pass.

In order to get into Osaka Business Park station, we had to go through a shopping mall at the bottom of a large office tower. As we were looking for some facilities to use inside the mall, we came across a dog cafe. Literally a cafe designed for dogs to enjoy their treats in style. They really love their dogs in Japan.

We finally found the subway entrance after a few minutes search and were on our way to Osaka-ko [大阪港], or Osaka Harbor. Then we had to speed our way to the harbourfront known as the Tempozan [天保山] Harbor Village. It was about a 15-20 minute walk from Osaka-ko Station. Our brisk walk from the station to the harbourfront was through a noticeably newer part of town. The buildings were not so crowded in together. The roads were wider. If you look on a map, the coastline here looks very square and unnatural. So my guess is that this area is totally built on reclaimed land.

We finally found the harbourfront area where we would spend a few hours at a few of the tourist attractions and shopping centre. But where was the ticket office for the Santa Maria?

The Santa Maria is a motorized replica of the actual Santa Maria that Christopher Columbus used during his voyages. Now it's here in Osaka to cater to the tourists and help them to explore Osaka's busy harbour.

We had found the Santa Maria's berth and asked where we could get our tickets. The attendant sent us back indoors and up to the second floor. We exchanged our Osaka Unlimited Pass' coupon for an actual admission ticket and we were good to go. We lined up with only a minute to spare and we were soon boarding the replica sailboat.

The 45 minute boat ride would take us on a loop of Osaka Harbour. At the beginning, we would pass right by the 112.5m tall Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel. Before the completion of the London Eye, this was the tallest ferris wheel in the world. As H looked carefully at the ferris wheel from the boat, he spotted a special rider on one of the cars. See if you can tell from the photo.

Further down, we passed under the very large Hanshin Expressway Osaka Harbor Bridge. It reminded me of a bridge in Shanghai that I have seen in photos.

Just on the other side of the harbour, we could see Universal Studios Japan. We were just there the day before. Seeing the park from the harbour, you could tell that we were looking at the back of a lot of the buildings. But these weren't real buildings, but only a facade. So on this side, we could see the empty backing for what it was. The day before on the other side, it looked like a real American skyline. It didn't look so impressive on this side, but it was an interesting look behind the scenes.

At least from the water, I could get a better view of the Hollywood Dream roller coaster. You could even hear the screams from this far out. That was kind of fun.

We turned around and headed past the Tempozan Harbour Village and then rounded the edge of Tempozan. We could see a whole new area of Osaka, Port Town. There were new shiny towers jutting up into the sky and some fancy buildings down closer near the water. One of the smaller buildings was a large glass dome, which I found out was the Osaka Maritime Museum. This area is just chalk full of tourist attractions.

Even further down from Port Town was Osaka's only Ikea. It was huge, like most Ikeas, and in the middle of nowhere, also like most Ikeas. But there was no mistaking the characteristic blue and yellow colours of this Swedish furniture giant.

After spending most of the ride up top in order to take photos, it was getting really windy. Ominous clouds were also rolling in over the city at this point. We were hoping that it wouldn't rain too badly. At this point, we decided to explore the rest of the ship.

Hey! Look! It's Chris! Christopher Columbus, that is. Hm...I wonder if he knows his way around Osaka Harbour. He seems to be pointed off towards the port side of the boat. I think we should steer the ship starboard, though.

11/10 - Aqua Bus

2010-05-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

We headed north of Osaka Castle towards the Okawa River. Along the way, we passed by the large Osaka Hall. It looks like there were some large touring buses and trucks for a Japanese band or something. I didn't recognize the name, but it looked like there would be a big concert in the hall soon.

When we arrived at the Aqua Bus Liner's ticket office, we discovered we had just missed the previous boat by 15 minutes and would have to wait 45 minutes. It's hard to time everything perfectly, but the wait wasn't that bad. We walked back up from the pier to the plaza just outside the Osaka Hall. It looked like a large school group was gathering in the plaza. A teacher was giving them instructions. It turns out that this large group had a private booking of the Aqua Bus. We watched them board two Aqua Bus Liners. We could also see that they all had bento boxes stacked on the tables too. Lucky group. They had lunch included with their ride.

Our boat finally arrived on time. We boarded and took our seats; however, there was some confusion about the seating and we ended up moving so that a quartet of Japanese tourists could sit together. We weren't complaining, though. We got our table all to ourselves after moving.

Shortly after leaving the pier, the boat started to demonstrate the hydraulic system that lowered the top of the boat in order to slip under the very low bridges over the Okawa River. N took a video of the whole demonstration.

You could see some of Osaka's river front life as we went up the river. As we got closer to Nakanoshima, an island in the middle of the Okawa River, you could see some people walking through the park or sitting and enjoying lunch. Also, Nakanoshima is famous for the older European style buildings that dot the island. The Osaka Civic Center probably being one of the most famous. We saw that as we arrived at the Yodoyabashi Pier.

After so much walking for over a week, it was nice to have a tourist experience where we could sit for an hour. Because it was close to lunch, H was feeling peckish from all the walking. So we ordered some snacks. The biscuit they had was pretty good, but a little on the pricey side. That's what happens when you're on a tourist boat. Actually, N ended up sleeping for most of the ride because she was so tired. My feet were just happy not to have my full weight on them for 60 minutes.

Pretty soon, we had completed our loop around the Okawa River (marked in red above) and disembarked at Osakajo Pier where we had started. It was a nice, relaxing way to see the city, but we didn't really see that much. You could see some of the taller buildings that were near the water and you could see Osaka Castle, which we had just been to. Otherwise, not much to see. However, it was definitely a welcome rest for our feet on Day 9. Plus, the 10% discount from the Osaka Unlimited Pass didn't hurt. Now, we had to rush off to the harbour front to catch another boat - the Santa Maria.

11/10 - Osaka Castle

2010-05-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

After our breakfast, we headed back to Hommachi [本町] station and hopped onto the green line, or Chuo Line [中央]. Today was the first day of our Osaka Unlimited Pass. If you remember back to one of my first posts, the Osaka Unlimited Pass that we bought was a 2-day pass that gave us unlimited travel along with special coupons for discounts or free admission for various attractions.

We only travelled for two stations to Tanimachi Yonchome [谷町四丁目] station (Japanese station names can be so hard to remember). We climbed back out to the surface and were instant greeted by a tall beige building. This was the Osaka Museum of History and the local NHK television office. We would later return to the museum, but we were more interested in the large park across the street.

Osaka-jo [大阪城] Park, or Osaka Castle Park, is a large public park with Osaka Castle smack dab in the middle of the park. The castle is complete with moats, but sans water. It was nice to see so much green in the middle of overwhelmingly concrete cityscape of Osaka.

Once we entered the park we saw "our ride" coming along. Our ride was the Osaka Castle Park Road Train. It was slowly chugging along the wide concrete park path. We had to book it because we were afraid that the train would just pass the stop and they we would have to wait a half hour for the next one. Or heaven forbid, we'd have to walk through this lush green park to the castle in the middle. Lucky for us, we got it in time. It was a free ride for us because we had a coupon from the Osaka Unlimited Pass. We were the only two on this train this morning. It slowly made it's way around the southern and eastern perimeters of the park before turning in towards the centre where the castle is. All along the way, a tourist description of the park and train were broadcast over the train's loudspeaker in a few different languages. I could pick out Japanese (of course), English, Mandarin, and Korean at least. That tells you who most of the visitors to Japan are. I think there were some European languages, but I can't recall with any certainty which ones were used.

We disembarked in front of the main gate to Osaka Castle. We crossed the wide and, surprisingly to me, empty moat. The moat was completely void of water. In it's place, greenery like vines had overtaken the otherwise bare stone surface. Inside the castle walls, we proceeded up to the main building. Many locals were just hanging around in the park, but there was definitely a Chinese tour group milling about the grounds as well. We came across a large time capsule that dated back to the World Expo in Osaka way back in 1970 (Oh my gosh, that's 40 years ago! How old does that make me feel?)

We walked up to the castle. It had a very distinct white and green with gold trim colour scheme going for it. It was definitely not as impressive as Himeji Castle, but having a local castle in town is impressive enough for me. How many towns can boast that (barring European cities, that is)?

Now some people may be disappointed, but I was totally okay when I walked through the main door of the castle. Osaka Castle is not a real castle; it is the rebuilding of an actual castle. It has the shell of a real castle, but inside is actually a very modern museum that tells you the local history. It was a surprise to me, but I thought it was still a very neat place to visit. So you have to walk in with the right expectations. It was definitely not the authentic castle experience of Himeji Castle a few days back.

The castle museum hosts a fascinating exhibit of local history. There are many dioramas. By the way, I think the Japanese love their museum dioramas. I, for one, love these dioramas too. There were dioramas of old local buildings and dioramas of entire armies. On this day, we were also lucky to sharing the museum with lots of noisy preschoolers on a field trip. I wonder how much these 4-5 years old understand in this museum. Or do they just love being outside of the school grounds running around with their classmates? You could tell they were all from the same class if they all shared the same little preschool cap.

The castle also gave wonderful views of Osaka from the top outdoor viewing areas. We could see west to the NHK and Osaka Museum of History buildings. To the north was the river and a host of more modern office buildings plus the large Osaka Hall dome. To the south, it was flat, but there looked to be a wide open space with what looked like foundations. I wasn't sure what this was until we went to the Museum of History the next day.

Once we were done with Osaka Castle Museum (which we had gotten in for free with our Osaka Unlimited Pass), we made our way towards the Osaka Hall and the river. We were aiming to catch the Aqua Bus Tour of Osaka.

11/10 - Moving Day, Sayonara Shinsaibashi

2010-05-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

The night before was our last night at the Hearton Hotel Shinsaibashi. The rooms may have been small leaving very little room for luggage and moving around, but it was clean and comfortable. The smell of stale smoke lingered somewhat, but fortunately, I could just ignore it. Plus, we even got cable TV in our room which was awesome when we were resting our extremely tired feet.

Early this morning, we checked out of the Hearton Hotel with our luggage and proceeded to go to our next accommodation. Before leaving for Osaka, N had looked up a few accommodation options. One was a guesthouse run by Taiwanese lady. This was a place featured in one of her Chinese-language travel books for the Kansai region. I can't remember when, but a few days earlier N called up this lady to book a room at her place. Fortunately, there was still space available for the few days for which we were extending our stay. Perfect.

We thought the guesthouse was pretty far from where we were, so the plan was to hop onto the subway, go the one station, then walk over to the guesthouse. When we got down to Shinsaibashi [心齋橋] subway station, it was right smack dab in the middle of rush hour. True to their reputation, Japanese subways are notoriously packed during rush hour. We waited for 3 trains before even attempting to get onto a subway car with our luggage. If it was too packed, we didn't want to force our way on. We thought it would really rile the polite-savvy Japanese. In the end, it was still tight and we were only going the one stop to Hommachi [本町] station.

Unfortunately, many Japanese subway stations are not designed with accessibility in mind. I'm not sure how a person on wheelchair would get around, but we constantly lifting and lowering our luggage through a series of staircases. Then we counted our blessings each time we encountered an elevator.

Later on, we actually discovered it would have been faster, easier, and a lot less work to have just walked from the hotel. Grrr....

So we walked a couple of blocks south from Hommachi Station to the guesthouse and checked in with the owner. A group of Taiwanese tourists were leaving for a day's outing in Osaka as we entered. We had to leave our shoes in the entryway and took a pair of slippers. When we entered the guesthouse on the ground level, the kitchen was right by the entry and there was a small living room where a giant flat screen TV dominated the room. There were a couple of guestrooms labeled with room numbers just behind the living room.

N chatted with the owner and got our keys for the small guest room on the second floor. She reminded us that the guesthouse is usually locked up in the middle of the day as she runs her personal errands or visits kids and grandkids. N and the owner worked out the costs and we were set.

I think the lady owner was a bit absent minded, though, because she kept thinking we had just flown in from Hong Kong. N had told her a few times already that we had flown from Canada and had been in town for many days already. It just didn't seem to really register in her mind even a few days later.

The staircase up to the upper floors was directly across from the giant flat screen TV. This staircase was super narrow too. We had some difficulty lifting our North American size luggage up as the staircase twisted upwards. There was no landing to speak of, so it was non stop up to the second floor.

Our room was bare and very minimal. No complaint here. There was no bed, but simply a floor level mattress on which to sleep. Of course, there were two pillows and a comforter to make the sleeping amenities complete. There were a few hooks on which we could hang jackets and/or towels. On top of a small table beside the door sat a small TV set. Oh oh. No cable and only 3 working channels. The evenings would not be as entertaining here. A look out of the curtained window showed that our room looked directly upon the road below. Luckily, it was not a busy street by an stretch of the imagination. It was a narrow one-way street with only the occasional mini-lorry or car rolling by.

Just outside our room was the shared bathroom - shower. And boy was this ever a small and tight set up in the bathroom. Very narrow door to enter the bathroom and the toilet is literally right there upon entry. I had a couple of few square feet to turn around. I could literally sit on the toilet and rest my head on the opposing wall. That's how small it was. The toilet featured a lever that could be pushed down on or pulled up upon. Down was labeled "big" for a big flush and up was labeled "small" for small flushes. I don't think I have to explain more. The toilet had a small thin pipe that run up the side with a spot that hung directly over the middle of the toilet tank. With a flush water would flow out of this small pipe and into a hole on the top of the toilet tank. I guess the idea is that you could wash your hands using the water that would fill the toilet tank right after flushing the toilet. I thought that was a good way to maximize the use of the toilet water. Then there was the shower. Oh my gosh, this shower stall had the sink and mirror inside the stall. Very awkward and very tight. I always hate it when I end up tracking my wet feet outside of a shower stall and make everything wet and dirty. I was not looking forward to the shower tonight.

The day was wasting away, so we just dropped off our belongings and took what would need for the day and get a move on our day. The first order of the day was to get some sustenance in our tummies. I didn't really want to have Matsuya for the umpteenth day again, so I suggested we eat breakfast at all small Western style bakery we passed on the way here. It was called the London Coffee & Bakery, or something to that effect. It served dead simple continental like breakfast. That was fine with me because I just wanted something different. N, however, wasn't all that happy. And for some strange reason, I had been craving coffee all this time while traveling through Japan. I usually don't have coffee so this was really an out of the ordinary kind of craving for me. N grabbed a pre-wrapped pork cutlet sandwich and ordered a glass of milk. I ordered something off the menu; something because I wasn't altogether sure what I was order, and a cup of coffee. Apparently what I ordered was honey drizzled toast of some sort. Hmm ... a little more plain Jane than what expected. In other words, not what I was looking for. Whatever, though. We partook in our daily bread and were quickly off to Osaka-jo [大坂城], or Osaka Castle.

11/9 - Universal City and SMAP Bistro

2010-05-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

So we finished all our rides and we saw most of the shows at Universal Studios Japan (with the exception of Waterworld, Wicked the musical, and some smaller ones). We exited the park and made our way to JR station to head back to our hotel in Shinsaibashi.

However, we still had one more destination to cross off our checklist here at Universal City just outside of Universal Studios Japan. It was the Takoyaki Museum. All right. It's not really a museum in the sense of exhibits and info. This museum is a collection of different takoyaki (fried octopus balls) stalls and styles. It also doesn't hurt to have huge cartoon drawings and statues marking the entrance to this "museum." N and I, but particularly N, are fans of this great Japanese snack. Takoyaki has its origins in the Osaka area, so it's only natural that a Takoyaki Museum can be found in Osaka.

We wandered around the shopping area of Universal City for a little bit. That's when we came across a different food stall selling onigiri. Onigiri is usually a simple combination of cooked rice shaped into a triangle, then half-wrapped in a small sheet of seaweed. Well, this onigiri stall sold a variety of different onigiri with different sizes and shapes. The one that got our attention was the Takoyaki Onigiri. A whole takoyaki ball wrapped completely in a rice ball which is then completely wrapped in sheet of seaweed. It looked like a giant bomb!

So we took our giant takoyaki onigiri ball back to hotel to snack on later. We were already pretty full from the takoyaki we tried upstairs in the takoyaki museum. We hopped back onto the JR train back to Umeda, then transferred to the Osaka Subway to get back to Shinsaibashi.

After a long day of play at USJ, we kicked off our shoes and turned on the TV to relax for the rest of the evening. When we turned on the TV, we discovered SMAP Bistro was on. SMAP is a five person idol group in Japan. They are most famous for their J-Pop brand of music, but they also have a popular TV show. Part of which is the SMAP Bistro. Not to mention that a few of the members are headline actors in many TV dramas and movies. N's Japanese tutor lent her a few episodes of SMAP Bistro for N to practice Japanese comprehension, so we were familiar with the show and were quite excited to be actually watching an episode on Japanese TV.

Every episode of SMAP Bistro has a celebrity guest judge. In previous episodes, they have had actors, politicians, and even Jane Birkin. This night was a Japanese comedian. Apparently, he's really funny because he has all of SMAP laughing, but we haven't the foggiest idea what he's joking about. The idea is that one of the members, the shortest of the five, plays chef de maison for the Bistro while the other four are split into two cooking teams. Each team must make a dish requested by their guest(s) or with ingredients requested by their guest(s). It's actually a pretty fun show to watch even if you don't understand Japanese. So what more can you ask for -- a great day at USJ, a giant takoyaki onigiri to split between N and I, and a cooking competition to end the night.

11/9 - USJ Shows and Parades

2010-05-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

We got off Hollywood Dream, The Ride and realized we had hit all the major ride attractions in the park, with the exception of Spider Man. Wow. I don't think I've ever gone through an amusement park so quickly.

N has a thing for parades at theme parks. The afternoon parade was supposed to pass by soon (soon as is in 30 minutes soon), so we found a spot along the curb side in front of the "Beverly Hills" shop. Pretty soon, you could hear the music of the parade making its way to our location. One by one, the floats passed by us with all the trademark characters at this park. Snoopy was one of the first. There was Woody Woodpecker. Hello Kitty?? How did USJ steal her from Sanrio? Hm...Pink Panther. Elmo of Sesame Street and "tickle me" fame. I guess when you're in Japan, you are in a totally different realm of copyright. Peanuts, Sesame Street, and Hello Kitty. How does that all work together?

Once the parade was done, we went for a second loop around the park. This time we went into to see the show attractions. The first one along the way was Shrek 4-D. Hmm.. 4-D. So vibrating chairs, right? Well not just that. When you get to a scene with Donkey sneezing, he literally sneezes on you as water is sprayed onto your face. That creates a lot of "ughs" in the audience. Ugh must be a universal sound of disgust. Also when a the wind is blowing, you feel the wind blowing. And when spiders or rats run past your legs, you feel them run past your legs. Now I just need a universal translator to figure out what Shrek just said to Donkey.

Just down the road from Shrek 4-D was Terminator 2 3-D. Admittedly, after the 4-D experience, 3-D is not as cool, but we were treated to live actors running on stage pretending to be a young John Connor escaping all the machines.

Because we were doing a second loop of the park, we had to pass by the Spider Man ride again. This time, though, we saw that people were lining up for the ride. We were in luck, the ride was open again. So obviously got in line. In this ride, you sit in a car that moves from room to room and is similar to Indiana Jones in a way, but you also get the 3D aspect where Spidey sometimes lands on your car to protect you from all his unfriendly Spidey villains. I'd definitely ride it again if I went to Universal Studios stateside.

Okay, now we had truly exhausted all the ride attractions that we wanted to ride. We continued on our loop around the park and started snacking. I found a place with this neat little waffle treats. I felt a little peckish, so it was all good timing.

When we passed Jurassic Park, we noticed a few people having "Jurassic Legs" in and around the area. Basically Jurassic Legs are giant turkey legs that you're supposed to eat like a neanderthal. N couldn't resist and wanted one. I had one too. Look at the size of that thing!

With the night beginning to fall, that meant one more big show in the park and the Magical Starlight Parade. The show was a romantic Christmas stage show. In Japan, Christmas is not so much of a family event as it is a romantic event. It's almost on par with Valentine's Day for it's romantic value in Japan. So the whole story of the show centred and two star-crossed lovers who fall in love, but are sometimes separated by circumstances. But low and behold on Christmas Day, they find love with the help of Christmas angels. It ain't no Nativity story, I tell you.

The show ended with the lighting of the giant Christmas tree overlooking the plaza and stage. Plenty of photo-ops for star-crossed lovers here. Man, that's a gigantic tree. Nowhere in Vancouver have I ever seen such a huge Christmas tree. I guess we too poor in Vancity. We're busy paying our mortgages :P

We then made our way over to the "Main Street USA" section to grab a seat for the night's magical light parade. Again, we arrived about half an hour or so before the show. We tried to entertain our selves by watching people scream nearby on the Hollywood Dream ride. Finally, the show was making its way to our section. The parade kicked off with a giant Elmo in the lead. Snoopy and Hello Kitty were in direct tow right behind Elmo. Elmo's so big he covers up Snoopy in the photo.

After the initial trademark characters floated on by, different floats based on different stories came by. First there were a whole set of Alice in Wonderland floats. Then there were the Aladdin and Arabian Nights themed floats. Lastly, there were the Cinderella floats.

All right, we were, at least I was, pretty "floated" out by this point. It was time for one more ride on the Hollywood Dream. We raced into the queue for the ride right after the parade passed us by. This time I figured out how to choose my Beatles song. "Get back! Get back to where you once belonged!"

11/9 - Universal Studios Japan

2010-05-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well, today was a play day at USJ, or Universal Studios Japan. Of course, we started the morning with a Matsuya breakfast. I wonder if the Matsuya morning staff are starting to recognize us. It's a Monday morning, so we are caught up with some of the morning rush, but we find it curiously absent of salaryman having their breakfast. We thought it'd be busier.

To get to USJ, we actually have to take a JR train today. The JR train takes us directly to Universal City and the USJ entrance gate. So we didn't use any of our special passes today. We just paid cash at the ticket vending machines for our fares. Also, because we'd be on amusement park rides for most of the day, I decided to not lug around my DSLR. My shoulders needed a rest from all carrying all that stuff. So we relied on N's little Canon IXUS for our shots this day.

We walked in from the Universal City JR Station to the giant USJ gate. Again, it seems like Asia goes all out just before Christmas. So USJ was all decked out in Christmas decorations. And maybe you thought we had way too much Christmas back home. I don't think so now.

So upon entry, we planned to head straight for one of the more popular rides to get it out of the way before the day got too busy. We got to Spider Man The Ride, but found out that it was closed. Grr... that wasn't a great start to our day at USJ. So we settled for the Back to the Future ride next door. Did you know that Christopher Lloyd spoke Japanese? I didn't either.

After about a 30 minutes at Back to the Future, we just headed next door again to Backdraft. This is not as interesting because there's a lot of talking. And since this was Japan, all the talking was in Japanese. Ah, Ron Howard-san, genki desu ka? I think Backdraft is a redo if I ever get to a Universal Studios in the States.

Just following the path, we then headed over to Jurassic Park. This was a pretty fun ride with the huge water drop at the end. We bought the el cheapo poncho from the vending machine. USJ was definitely milking our money today.

After 3 rides, we were already feeling peckish. We came across a little food kiosk that sold a Snoopy shaped bun. It was very cute. We bought one to share. Of course, this experience would not be complete without a photo. I was very curious as to the taste of the bun. Once I bit into, I exclaimed, "It's a Chinese yellow custard bun!!!" Seriously, it tasted the same as the yellow custard buns I can buy in the frozen food section of T&T, except that I paid extra for the stylishly black Snoopy nose, eyes, and ears.

All right, enough trademarked food then. We made our way over to the Jaws ride. It's funny how everything is decorated like a New England fishing town here, but everybody speaks Japanese. Even our "boat guide" was a young Japanese gentleman who hammed it up with his giant "rifle" when the shark got really close. Good thing he was expressive, otherwise, it may not have been so entertaining. N got unlucky when some water got on her as Jaws "buzzed" our boat.

As if there wasn't enough water involved with Jaws, we went next door to the Peanuts area where we came across Peppermint Patty's Stunt Slide. It's basically an enclosed water slide where you ride a two person raft through the tubes. Even though it was pretty similar to what you might experience in any waterpark, it was still fun for thrill. How it's related Peppermint Patty? No idea, but my pant legs were pretty wet after this ride. Arrghh!

We grabbed some lunch in this Peanuts themed area. N ordered the doggie meal, literally, complete with dog dish, but with human food. I can't say that burger and fries were all that good, though.

After lunch, we went into the Peanut Gallery with whole bunch of Peanuts characters to take pictures with. Birchwood School was there complete with Charlie Brown's teachers unintelligible speech. I guess it doesn't matter what language his teacher speaks in, it never makes sense.

Once we finished visiting with the Snoopy and Charlie Brown, we headed to the only roller coaster at USJ - Hollywood Dream, The Ride. This was obviously the big attraction in the park featuring the longest wait of all the rides. Hollywood Dream features your choice of 5 songs to ride along with. I originally wanted to listen to The Beatles, but screwed up and accidentally selected Enimem. Not what I was looking for. We would have to come back later.

11/8 - Back in Kyoto so soon

2010-05-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

We hopped onto a green Keihan train to leave Uji for Kyoto. We would have to transfer along the way, though. We went back the way we came and actually did the train station transfers instead of walking the 20-30 minutes to transfer near Momoyama. When we got onto the train for Kyoto, we were surprised that we would boarding the Ise-Shima Liner. This is a fancier longer distance train coming in from Ise, which is 151 km away from Kyoto by car. It looked very different from the regular urban trains that we had been riding. It was more streamlined and had some very fancy seats in a first class area. We weren't allowed on the first class car obviously, but the seats in the regular car were a little more comfortable to accommodate for a longer ride. A train ride from Ise to Kyoto is 2+ hour ride. Too bad we were only on this train for 10 minutes at most. It would have been a nice comfy long distance ride.

We arrived back in Kyoto Station, but we were in a totally different part of this large train station and had to find our way back to the main entrance in order to figure out where we were. Once we found the main entrance, we could re-orient ourselves and head into the underground mall for another round of takoyaki. It was just as good as the first time.

After dinner, we wondered the mall for a bit, but there wasn't much that interested us. So we went back up to Kyoto Station's Sky Garden. To be honest, there wasn't much to see. And you could see hand prints on all the windows that offered views of the city. I didn't find it that impressive up there, plus it was feeling very cold this evening. So went back down. There was a piano recital going on in the large amphitheatre just on the way down from the Sky Garden. There were all these school-age kids playing their songs. I think we stayed for 3 songs. Unfortunately, 2 of the songs were the same. They must have the same piano teacher teaching the same piece.

And because it was nearly Christmas, there was a giant lit up Christmas tree that was just above the amphitheatre stage and could be seen by the milling transit riders below. I think Christmas is more over the top in Asia than it is back home. We just never see gigantic electric trees back home.

11/8 - Uji - the city of the Tale of Genji

2010-05-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

We wondered along the Uji River and came across the local tourist centre. We had been collecting rubber stampings all this time and we found the Rekishi Kaido stamp for Uji. Rekishi Kaido is a society that promotes Japan's historical and cultural resources to the public. So their rubber stamps is one way to promote Japan's history. I think it's a great way for kids to get excited about history. Here's the website sample of the ink stamp we got, except they don't provide such colourful ink for the rubber stamps.

We crossed the a small pedestrian bridge onto a small island in the middle of the river. There were a lot of boats tied up to the shore. They looked like pleasure boats used to entertain guests for drinks and possibly dinner. The island itself had a small park on it. There was even a temporary Sunday Market set up. But we obviously missed it because most of the stalls were empty and people were packing their goods away into their tiny Japanese minivans.

On the other side of the river, we made our way up a tiny incline towards another shrine. It was very quiet in the shrine and in fact, the shrine was almost dead except for a couple of other tourists. The sun was starting to set, so the autumn leaves looked beautiful in the sunshine. But otherwise, I didn't think it was actually worth walking up to this shrine.

A little ways up past the shrine was a museum dedicated to the Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji. Now I never read this novel, so I had very little reason to go into this museum. I remember hearing about it in an Asian Studies class and that it is sometimes considered the world's first novel. But other than that, I know very little about the story. However, Uji and it's surrounding area is apparently featured in the story. There is also a statue of one of the characters from the novel closer to the middle of town.

So we completed a giant loop around Uji by walking back to the Keihan train station. The sun was setting and we were going to have to find dinner soon. We decided that we would head back into Kyoto to grab a bite to eat and probably have some of that yummy takoyaki again.

11/8 - Uji - The Thousand Year Old Temple of Byodo-in

2010-05-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

We got off at Keihan Uji Station. Outside the train station, we were quickly greeted by the sound, smell, and sight of the Uji [宇治] River . It was a very wide flat river. Even though, the river runs through the middle of a city, it felt idyllic with cranes perched upon their legs in the middle of the river on one side of the bridge and a lone fisherman wading out into the river to ply his trade.

We crossed the bridge to the other side where there were more shops and restaurants. As mentioned previously, we were hungry after walking for 20-30 minutes in the Momoyama train station area. We found a small sushi restaurant in the tourist stretch of shops.

We both ordered Zaru Soba (green cold noodles), but we ordered different sides. I had the assorted sushi side order while N ordered the inari side order. We were really hungry at this point and happy to be sitting. The price was actually very reasonable for these two meals. I think we paid under ¥2,000 for both meals. That's not a bad price considering we were right beside one of the most famous temples in all of Japan.

After lunch, we saw a line up for matcha green tea ice cream. Essentially, the green tea ice cream came out of what looked like a soft ice cream machine. Then their piece de resistance was adding fresh matcha powder onto the ice cream itself. There was quite a line up here, so that peaked our curiosity. Plus, after being inside Byodo-in for about 2 hours or so, we felt like having a snack. It was the perfect snack for this warm autumn afternoon.

That famous temple would be the Byodo-in [平等院]. According to Wikipedia, this temple was built in 998. This place is likely one of the oldest places I've ever been in. The surround complex is beautifully manicured and is very peaceful. There is a giant reflecting pond that surrounds the Phoenix Hall, which is the main building within the temple. The Phoenix Hall was built in 1053 and is only accessible for an additional cost of ¥300 on top of the ¥600 for admission to the temple grounds. We debated about it at first, but the building is almost 1,000 years old, so we thought it would be worth the price and the hour wait until the next session.

While waiting for our time to enter the Phoenix Hall, we went off to the very modern museum on the grounds of the temple. The museum was great and did not cost an extra yen. There was a wonderful CG rendition of the Phoenix Hall when it was in its glory. The Hall houses a large golden Buddha, which isn't very golden in real life. Plus the walls of the hall would have brightly painted and almost heavenly. In another room, were the original statuettes that hung on the wall of the Phoenix Hall. They were removed and moved indoors in order to preserve them. And, of course, what museum is complete without a gift shop.

Our appointed time of 3:15pm was rolling around and so we went back to the Phoenix Hall and lined up. At 3:15pm a tour guide brought us across the tiny bridge across the pond to the hall. We had to take off our shoes in a designated area. There were even numbered spots for people to place their shoes for safe keeping. I guess this way, it's easy to remember your number and come back for your shoes. I also took note of the sign that said no photography.

Inside the Phoenix Hall it was very dark. This was in stark contrast to the image that the CG rendition portrayed. Obviously, time had taken its toll on this ancient structure. The giant Buddha still sat in the middle of the hall with eyes peering over the pond. Unfortunately, all the tour guide's explanation was in Japanese so we hadn't a single idea of what was going on, but just being in this ancient hall was impressive enough. I would think a millennial celebration is in the works for 2053. We'll see if I'm still kicking around then.

11/8 - Which way to the train station?

2010-05-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

All right. H here. I don't know what I was thinking, but I decided not to follow the map as outlined on our Kansai Thru Pass. We were on our way from Nara to Uji, but I saw that there was at least two transfers according to the Thru Pass Map. However, I had seen on a different map somewhere that a station on the Kyoto-Nara Line was walking distance to a station on the Uji Line. So why bother transfering twice when we could just transfer once with a small walk.

Hm. Wrong decision. We got off at Momoyamagoryo-mae Station on the blue line above. According to the map, like on Google Maps below, it looked fairly close to walk to Kangetsukyo Station, but boy was it hard to figure out where the station was while on the ground. No wonder the Thru Pass Map makes it look like it was really far.

We got out of Momoyama Goryomae station and walked east towards the main road. However, that's where I couldn't figure out if I had gotten to the correct road or not. So I decided to keep walking. I found a set of train tracks thinking that it was our desired station. However, I noticed that it was JR train station. We weren't planning to travel on a JR train, so this was totally the wrong train station. We would have had to pay extra if we hopped on a JR train today.

We double backed to the main road. Road signs are so hard to read sometimes in Japan. The road name on the map didn't correspond to the name on the street sign. But this was the only main road, so we started to walk south. There weren't many stores and the afternoon sun was beating down on us. So needless to say, it was sunny and warm and I was anxious to find this station.

The busy road made it's way down the hill, but I still couldn't see the station. I was starting to wonder if we were going the right direction. When I finally saw a train running right beside a perpendicular road at the bottom of the hill, I felt we had found our desired station. As we got closer, we could finally make out the station sign - Kangetsukyo. Phew.

We crossed the busy intersection and we made our way into the station. Double checked that we were on the correct platform (a very important detail) and waited for our train to Uji.

After an unexpected midday hike under the afternoon sun, we were really hungry. Next station - Lunch!

If you want to know the way we should have gone, then here's the map. We should have disembarked at Kintetsutanbabashi and crossed the platform to the neighbouring line. Then we would have gone back south to Chushojima to transfer to the Uji train that would run eastward through Kangetsukyo. Live and learn.

11/8 - Nara, the ancient capital

2010-05-01T23:03:00.000-07:00

This day we were heading out early to get more out of our Kansai Thru Pass. We weren't originally planning to head out to the city of Nara. However, since we had an extra day left on our Pass and since we had extended our stay an extra two days, we decided to make the most of it by visiting Nara and Uji.

That morning, we headed for breakfast at Matsuya again. I'm starting to tire of this fast food breakfast, but it is admittedly a quick and filling meal. Then we hopped onto the subway station for one stop to Namba station and then made a transfer to a Kintetsu train bound for Nara's Kintetsu station.

It still amazes me how close all these cities are. The ride to Nara was a very quick half-hour ride on a comfy Kintetsu train. It was a Sunday and the train was not any slower than any other day as far as I could tell. The Kintetsu to Nara runs mostly underground through Osaka, but it comes up to the surface in further reaches of the eastern part of town. Then it makes a turn northwards in a residential district as it scales up a hill towards a mountain tunnel. As the train briefly travels up the hill, you can look back at the towers of Osaka's city centre in the west. It looks pretty far away, but it's only been about 15 minutes from the time we boarded back at Namba.

The train made its way through the mountain range and exited on the other side. After being on this train for quite a while, I started to notice there were a lot of school age boys on the train this morning. Many of them were wearing the exact same athletic wear, which suggested to me that they were all from the same school. Station after station, a couple more boys with the same track suit would board the train. Plus, all of them were on their portable gaming systems. It made me wonder if they were already playing wirelessly with each other before meeting up on the train.

We arrived in the ancient city of Nara and made our way to the large giant city park just east of the Kintetsu Nara station. The very first thing we noticed were all the deer inhabiting the city. This must be the largest collection of semi-domesticated deer in the whole world. Obviously, being the good tourists we are, we took gobs of photos of the giant rodentia and even bought the deer snacks from the streetside vendors. These deer can be pretty aggressive. N had a few surrounding her and one or two nudging her from behind. Thankfully, it looks like all the deer have their horns trimmed right down to prevent unnecessary gouging.

We kept walking deeper and deeper into the park and there were more and more deer everywhere. There were sleepy deer who must have had enough food from tourists for the day. There were deer standing in the middle of the road waiting for cyclists and vehicles to go around them. There was one deer lapping up water in a tiny stream by one of the temples. Then my favourite deer of all was the iron-deficient deer who was chewing on the tough metal chain-links of a fence. Mmm...tasty...

Our first big destination of the day was Todai-ji [東大寺]. This is the largest wooden structure in the world which also houses the largest statue of Buddha. What is even more amazing is that the temple is only a reconstruction of what was an even larger original wooden structure. The current great hall of Todai-ji is actually 30% smaller than its predecessor! The original building must have been even more impressive.

Just behind the giant Buddha statue is a giant wooden column with a hole at the bottom. The hole is apparently the same size as Buddha's nostril. Apparently, the belief is that those who can squeeze through this hole, a representation of Buddha's nostril, then you will attain enlightenment. Well, we came all this way, so we couldn't pass up this opportunity. However, it was a lot more fun to watch people trying to squeeze through than it was actually doing it. I actually had to go through twice because N's camera didn't work the first time around so I lined up again. Does that make me doubly enlightened or did the second time around nullify my enlightenment?

What was even more fun was a Japanese motorcyclists who tried to squeeze through. First of all, he was still wearing his bulking riding pants complete with buckles. Second, it looked like he had contorted his body the wrong way in order to pass through. My, was he ever stuck in that hole or what? A tourist complete with netbook and webcam saw the proceedings and recorded everything directly onto his hard drive. I don't think the guy ever made in the end after two attempts. To add salt to his wounded pride, a little kid went right after him with no difficulty whatsoever. Everyone had a good laugh at the biker's expense.

After Todai-ji, we walked a long walk towards Kasuga Taisha [春日大社]. This is probably the most important Shinto shrine in Nara. It was really busy this Sunday because many families had brought their children for the 3-5-7 celebrations. So many well dressed families in Western and traditional garb. Some of the kids' clothing were hybrid traditional Japanese and Western dress. We thought about exploring the deep interior of this shrine, but decided against it when we saw the crowds and thought it was enough to just see the outside and part of entrance area. It was just fun people watching Japanese families during this time of ritual.

We head back down towards the train station, but not before passing through a lane lined with stone lanterns on either side. Many a deer were poking their heads out in between the lanterns. Cute little rascals when they leave me alone. I guess as long as I'm not feeding them, I'm not getting tugged on and nudged at. The stone lanterns were quite impressive and some of them had characters engraved on them. I got the impression that the characters were usually the names of people who had perhaps donated to erecting these stone lanterns. I think a few of the lanterns even had corporate sponsors from the looks of it.

We took a different road back to the train station and happened upon a little market area. I suspect we had come across the northern section of the Naramachi shopping area. There were a lot of folks milling about on this Sunday morning. So we could resist grabbing a little something to eat while in this area. We lined up for a little green tea mochi snack with a peanut type powder sprinkled over it. Tasty little treat to hit the spot for our next leg of travel. It wasn't quite lunch time yet so we thought we would wait until Uji before eating. You'll find out why maybe we should ate first in our next post. Mostly H's fault this time.

11/7 - Evening in Dotonbori

2010-02-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

After an afternoon break back at the hotel, we headed back out into the town. A great area just hang around at night would be Dotonbori [道頓堀]. It's at the southern end of the Shinsaibashi-suji shopping arcade. You know you've reached Dotonbori when you see all the bright lights and giant neon advertisements lined up right next to the tiny river.

However, our highlight tonight was not the touristy stuff, but our dinner. We found an okonomiyaki restaurant that was recommended by one of N's travel books. To a foreigner, you probably wouldn't pick this restaurant out except for the crowd lining outside the door. At first, I thought the restaurant was really tiny with only 10 seats right up against the cooking area. The cooks literally cook the okonomiyaki on the giant flat grills right in front of you. It's pretty neat to see it all, and to smell it all.

Originally, I thought the staff were trying to tell us that the wait would be another 1.5 hours and were asking us to come back. However, as we were making our way out of the restaurant, the server rushed out and grabbed us and redirected us upstairs. Upstairs? I didn't realize there was an upstairs here. Upstairs actually had tables with mini-grills in the middle. Good thing the server came out to grab us; otherwise, we would've missed this great meal.

I felt that the occasion called for a glass of local brew. Yebisu was the brand they were pedalling so I decided to partake in it. It was a light lager type of beer, but it was pretty tasty. I'm not a huge light beer fan, but this one was definitely a good one. We ordered a set meal consisting of two mini-okonomiyakis and one regular, larger okonomiyaki.

After dinner, there was a really long line up. We were glad that we had gotten a littler early to the restaurant. Otherwise, we'd really be waiting 1.5 hours for dinner. We went back to the Dotonbori Bridge and took in the giant adverts. Even if you don't plan on spending any money, it's great just to stand and bask in the glow of the commercial lights and watch tourists pose as their favourite snack brand athlete, the Glico Man.

The bright Dotonbori River lights are not the only draw on this stretch. There's also many larger than life store signs along the pedestrian walk that is directly south of the river and runs parallel to the river. Right on the corner of the pedestrian walk and the Dotonbori bridge is a giant crab. It simply dominates this particular corner. Obviously, the restaurant on which this sign resides sells crab for dinner. Go figure.

A little further down, there is a variety of other signs. There's the Red Devil Takoyaki stand complete with red demons adorning the whole front. There's a giant lit up puffer fish with giant "fugu" hiragana letters noting the presence of a fugu restaurant. (Every year, a handful of people die eating the poisonous puffer fish). There's also a Dotonbori icon that looks like a Japanese man with thick round glasses wearing a clown suit decked out in American colours. A famous landmark and icon to Japanese, but it's not really accessible to those who do not speak Japanese.

We then headed back to river and walked along the quieter riverwalk. There was a lot less activity here. There was a giant vertical ferris wheel that wasn't in service, but was definitely lit up in bright neon colours. Even the main Dotonbori bridge had a touch of light built in underneath the span.

Again, just walking around Dotonbori is nice enough. You don't even have to really buy anything. We had walked across to the other side of the river to get back to Shinsaibashi-suji. However, we soon realized that we were in sort of a red light/night club area. Oops. Always be careful where you walk off to, I guess. Japan is a fairly safe country to walk around, but you likely still want to avoid the shadier areas of town.